Bill is in his tenth year with Bilingual and is currently Megyeri Team Leader.
I arrived in Budapest in 2001 with stars in my eyes, excited to live in a new place but completely unaware of the adventure it would become. Yes, it’s a stunning city in the heart of Europe, but I gained much more than I expected, far beyond experiences and new knowledge. As I learned about the people around me over the years, I also learned a great deal about myself and the people I was surrounded by back at home in the States. The discoveries have not always been pleasant ones, but they’ve definitely been informative!
Learning about a foreign culture from the inside is a great challenge with great rewards, and that’s especially true when teaching in a public school. Wow! School in Hungary is certainly different from what I experienced back home. There is always something new to learn about and talk over, even so many years later, on every topic from public transportation to scientific discovery to the arts to psychology. It’s endlessly fascinating, to say the least!
As for the teaching experience itself, I love that my students are eager to share what they know in English, while parents are keen to see their children learn an international language that offers a path toward the world beyond Hungary’s borders. My favorite part of the Bilingual program, though, is co-teaching with Hungarian colleagues, where I teach English through the material in a subject lesson. My teaching partners are eager to share knowledge and compare perspectives, and I get to experience different styles and methods in action as children learn. I can’t imagine a better way to teach my language, and at the same time I can’t get enough of the rewards that come along with it.
